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What is the biggest park in a North American city is? New York Central
Park? Stanley Park in
Vancouver? Or maybe it's Druid Hill Park in Baltimore? or maybe......
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www.evergreen.ca/nclargestpark.html
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A recent query to the Tree_House, the Community Forestry listserv, about North
America's largest urban park brought back the answer (as well as many
others about
big - but not biggest - urban parks). However, a recent story in Canada's
National
Newspaper about cougars roaming near Toronto (Canada's megalopolis), alerted me
to another Park, even BIGGER. So, here you have North America's Largest Urban
Park:
Rouge Park, Ontario, is the largest urban park in North America, at 11,400
acres.
It spans the Rouge River to the east of Downtown Toronto, starting north of
Markham and running to Lake Ontario. For more information, please contact Sue
Russell, Rouge Park Council (416) 287-6843. (The cougar, by the way, are likely
pets which were released, but may be surviving.)
- and the runner up:
Published in an article in the Winter '96 issue of 'America Forests,' entitled
'Workday Wilderness,' by Bill Donahue ...
Forest Park, a thin green expanse of 5,000 acres that stretches along the
face of the
Tualatin Moun- tains [created by Portland's City Council in 1948], begins
just 20
blocks outside the business district. It is the nation's largest
self-contained urban
forest -- nothing else even comes close -- and is home to a sprawling
pastiche of
second-growth conifers and dotted with a few small, diverse stands of
old-growth.
Sword ferns are ubiquitous in the moist soil here, and there is wildlife --
deer,
coyotes, great blue herons, and even reports of black bears -- and also a
27-mile-long path, the Wildwood Trail, that takes you past a rose garden, an old
mansion, and a creek with cutthroat trout ...
... Though Forest Park is by far Portland's largest wild place, it is
hardly its only
one. Portland has about 5,000 additional acres of park land, including an
extinct
volcano and a wetland that is home to Bald Eagles. The metro area is likely
to stay
green over the coming decades:
Last May, metropolitan Portland voters decided to spend $135 million to buy
6,000
acres to preserve wild spaces in the city and the suburbs and small towns
surrounding it.
Most of the money will not go to Forest Park, says Nancy Chase, a senior planner
with Portland's regional government, Metro. The "open Spaces" program will focus
instead on saving wild areas that are now un- protected and threatened by
development ...
"We want to secure the wildlife corridor," says Chase ...
Excerpted & submitted to Tree-House by R Tryzno Ellsberry, Richard@Flora.Com
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Kevin McLaughlin
digital construct / Advisor
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The Evergreen Foundation.... connecting people with nature
through the enhancement of healthy natural environments
in schools and communities across Canada.
Vancouver: 604.689.0766
Toronto: 416.596.1495
http://www.evergreen.ca
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